


The water is always warmest at dawn

by lysiabeth



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 16:23:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17881175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lysiabeth/pseuds/lysiabeth
Summary: Jason himself seems to be caught off guard, the paper bag he has clenched in one arm slipping slightly as he catches sight of Kyle, though Kyle doesn’t know if that’s because he’s shocked to see Kyle himself or if because Kyle really looks as bad as he feels.“You look terrible, Rayner.” Is what he says, when he finally composed himself, and Kyle just crosses his arms and tries to miss the pinching feeling in his ribs as he does so.





	The water is always warmest at dawn

The motel that Donna drags Kyle to is one of the nicer ones he’s ever been in. The walls are clean and there’s twenty-four hour desk attendance from a staff member wearing something that actually resembles a uniform, and Kyle doesn’t feel like he needs to create his own locks on the door as Donna closes it behind them. 

“This place has been scoped out by the best, Kyle. You don’t need to flinch every time you hear a noise.” Donna tells him; pulls off her denim jacket and slings it onto the bed across the room, and Kyle just twists the ring around his finger nervously before dropping his hands behind his back.

“Sorry. Sorry, it’s been… A rough few weeks.” He tells her, hopes the bruising on his skin and the bags under his eyes are evidence enough of just how close to fraying Kyle is. Donna brushes a hand over his bicep and squeezes it, lightly, a look of concern flashing over her features before she lets go again. 

“Want to talk about it?” She asks, her touch already leeching some of the wariness from Kyle's body, and Kyle is about to open his mouth, to tell her that ‘yes, he’d love to, because he feels like his moments away from cracking and no one else seems to notice’ when the door unlocks behind them, and Kyle is immediately on the defence again. 

The defence turns to shock, and then a bubbling anxiety, and then shock again, and Donna places her hand back on Kyle’s bicep to… stabilise him? Stop him fainting? He doesn’t know, but he’s thankful, when his voice finally croaks out the syllables of the name.

“Jason?” because he’s had a haircut cut and looks bigger and more filled out than when they last saw each other, but the shock of white through his fringe and the familiar leather jacket couldn’t go missed by Kyle even if he tried. 

Not that he thinks about Jason much, these days. Really. It’s just that maybe every leather jacket he comes across might remind him of the night Jason slung his own over Kyle's shoulders when the temperatures dropped and he was too tired to come up with his own heat source, and he still thinks about the scent of it; gun powder, earth and pure electricity, all things that immediately bring Jason to mind whenever Kyle thinks about them. Which he doesn’t. As he was saying. 

Jason himself seems to be caught off guard, the paper bag he has clenched in one arm slipping slightly as he catches sight of Kyle, though Kyle doesn’t know if that’s because he’s shocked to see Kyle himself or if because Kyle really looks as bad as he feels. 

“You look terrible, Rayner.” Is what he says, when he finally composed himself, and Kyle just crosses his arms and tries to miss the pinching feeling in his ribs as he does so. 

“Could say the same about you. I see that Hood of yours still doesn’t do much to stop you from getting your ass beat.” Kyle says, eyes searching over Jason’s split lip and crooked nose, and suddenly the tension that had washed over the room snaps, because Jason cracks a smile and his eyes look like they’re sparkling, and Kyle feels himself fall head over heels for him all over again. 

Donna lets go of him, obviously feels that the three of them meeting up again won’t end in tears or a punch up, and then her and Jason push past him into the other area of the room, where a kitchenette seems well used and they talk about things that make it evident they’ve been working together a while. 

“Huh.” Is all Kyle says, all he really can say, and then he follows them through, hopes maybe he can snag a beer or seven painkillers without feeling too much like a trouble.

 

——————————

 

It’s a shock to see Kyle, for sure. Jason had known that Donna kept tabs on him when she could, when it called for it, when he was on Earth. 

He didn’t think he’d be meeting the Lantern again so soon, however. Especially with him just standing in the middle of his motel room, which Donna wasn’t even invited to in the first place, hair slightly longer than the last time Jason had seen him and face more filled out and eyes searching Jason like he could see right through him. That, he didn’t appreciate. 

But other things have changed about Kyle too; the nervous energy sort of just ebbs around him instead of rolling off him in waves, and he holds himself higher and grips the neck of the beer bottle like he’s meant to be sitting in the cheap motel arm chair, already fully immersed in whatever it is Donna has planned for the three of them. It makes Jason nervous; he’s used to the one shooting the shit with Donna, making Kyle restless and uncomfortable by sliding into his space and rustling his feathers, and instead it’s Jason who’s feeling jelly-tongued and choked up as he listens to Kyle and Donna chat behind him as he tries to remember how to cook a decent meal for them all. 

“What about you, Jason? What have you been up to?” Kyle asks, and Jason makes the mistake of looking over him while he takes another long gulp of beer from the bottle, and Jason just stares at him while his mind attempts a restart. He can see Donna in his peripheral; a slow look between the two boys and then the moment where she realises, her back straightening slightly and mouth parting and Jason is brought back to the present as the food in the pan pops, a bit of oil spitting out onto his exposed forearm.

“The usual. Looking handsome, kicking ass. You probably can’t say the same, Rayner.” Jason teases, even though it’s probably exactly what Kyle has been doing. 

“Oh yeah, you can tell. And I have done more than kick ass - I’ve saved planets you could only dream about from diplomatic emergencies all over space. Perks of the new bling, if you will,” Kyle says, and that’s when he loosens a few fingers from around the now-empty beer bottle, the white band catching against his dark knuckles, and Jason itches to go over to him and touch it, the white seeming much more inviting than the green Kyle used to sport. 

He turns the gas off, then, to save the meal from burning, and Donna moves from where she was sat against the wall to grab a mismatch of plates and cutlery that the motel keeps tucked away in the only cupboard it has. They assemble somewhat haphazardly around the place; Donna on the corner of the double mattress, Kyle still splayed in the arm chair, Jason leant up against the small bench the kitchenette has to offer. They eat mostly in silence, Donna's phone sometimes dinging from where it’s buried in the pocket of her jacket, and Jason just can’t help himself from flicking his eyes towards Kyle throughout the meal. 

It’s not like the last time they’d seen each other had been anything out of the ordinary. A slap on the back and a promise of seeing each other around that wasn’t meant to be kept. Then Jason had been busy in Gotham, and then in Cincinnati, and then helping Roy out over in Star City, and Kyle had just been… pushed away. Out of sight, out of mind. Not to say he didn’t think about him every now and then; any news about the Lanterns would have Jason keeping a keen ear out for Kyle, not that he actually understood himself why that was, and soon after he and Kyle had parted ways, Donna had grown tired of sticking around in the continental America for him to worry about her also. 

They’d met up just under a week ago, Donna fighting some meta-hybrid experiment that had gone wrong, Jason on the tail of the mastermind behind the whole thing. It had made sense for them to team up, the two of them far past formalities to be upset about sharing the same living space for a few weeks. If Jason had known that Donna was keeping tabs on Kyle for the whole reason of bringing him into the fold too, he might have thought twice about telling her not to worry about how long she hung around. 

Kyle is the first one to break the silence, his knife and fork coming together on the plate and the plate pushed forward until it floats mid-air, a white cloud supporting it. 

“So… You guys need me to get another room or are we all gonna bunk up again, just for old times sake?” He asks, his head pointed in Donna’s direction but eyes flicking towards Jason, and Jason tenses. The bed is barely big enough for him and Donna’s sleep enabled gymnastics, and he knows Kyle likes to starfish too. 

Jason clears his throat. “We’re pretty close to closing this whole thing up. No use in paying for an extra room, especially seeing as we need to start recon tomorrow night anyways.” 

He doesn’t know why he’s being so… Accommodating. Maybe it’s because being around Kyle makes him want to actually try be the person Kyle told him he thought he could be, all those years ago. The empty plate on Kyle’s cloud floats closer to Jason, and whatever moment the three of them were sharing drops. Donna coughs, and then stretches, her own plate left on the bed spread.

“I’m going to shower.” She tells them both, plucks a towel up from the floor and sniffs at it before slinging it over her shoulder, and that’s the end of that as Jason moves to pick up the used plates and dump them in the sink with the rest of them. Kyle stays on the chair, elbows leaning on his knees, head bowed down. Jason dumps his hands in the sink, and tries not to think about how he wants to bury his face there.

 

——————————

 

Kyle goes to sleep with Donna curled around his left side and Jason turned away from the both of them, and doesn’t wake until a few hours later, when the buzz of the beers has worn off and he really really needs to pee. He peels Donna off of him, who makes a sound in her sleep before face planting into the other pillow, and it takes Kyle some time for his eyes to adjust before he realises that Jason is gone. Kyle has no idea what time it is, or where Jason could have gone, but as he makes his way around the room towards the direction of the bathroom he notices that Jason’s shoes and jacket are still in the room.

That’s some consolation, at least. Kyle knows that Jason wouldn’t go far without either of those two. He finishes up in the bathroom and dares a glance at himself in the mirror; chest a mottled colour of purple, blue and green, the gash on his side scabbing and raw, the burn mark from a bad landing still all up his back.

“You’re a mess, Rayner.” He tells his reflection, not unlike how Guy would probably say it if he were around to see him making a colossal mess at being the White Lantern, and he grabs his hoodie on the way past, makes sure to close the door quietly on his way out.

The motel is still the same as it were six hours ago. The hallways are lit with LED’s and the odd one flickers as Kyle passes below it, makes it all the way to the end of the balcony and down the small set of steps. He walks out into the parking lot. The vending machines go unattended, the ice machine whirring in the distance. It’s warm out but breezy, and Kyle’s hair tickles his forehead. If his mom were around, she’d make some comment about it needing a cut. He tries to think about where Jason may have gone - he’s already been to the store, the attendant behind the front desk is invested in something on the small portable TV hung up on the wall. Kyle figures maybe he just went for a walk, and as he turns around his eyes catch on the low-lit swimming pool across the lot.

There’s someone sitting on the pool edge, their skin glowing neon under the startling ‘OPEN’ sign standing over the place, and Kyle doesn’t have to squint to know it’s Jason hunched over. He makes his way towards the gate, feet crunching on the gravel, and Jason turns towards the sound, his defenses dropping somewhat when he sees Kyle approaching.

He has no shirt on, his jeans are rolled up under his knee, and the halo of light around his head makes him look almost unreal as Kyle lets himself through the safety gate, heart hammering as he approaches.

“Hey.” He says, drops down next to Jason but far enough away that there’s still an arm’s length between them. Kyle regrets putting on his hoodie; looks into the water and remembers how much he misses it, the feel of it over his skin and through his hair. Growing up by the beach when he was younger he used to take for granted, now, when he’s in space most of the time, he realises how lucky he was to have that. He shuffles on the pool tiles and plops each leg into the water, one leg after another, and wiggles his toes.

“Isn’t it cold?” Jason asks, makes Kyle jump a bit, but his perplexed look and shocked tone of voice startles a laugh out of Kyle.

“Nah, man. It’s perfect. I’d fully swim in this right now, actually.” Kyle says, and Jason raises a brow at the hoodie Kyle is wearing, who then pulls it off in one stroke, goosebumps erupting on his chest as he does so.

“Fuck,” Jason lets out, then grimaces, and Kyle pulls his arms around himself.

“Ah… Yeah. Kinda got into a fight with an alien. Lost.” Kyle says, and slides himself into the water before he’s hit with a condescending remark from Jason, who instead just folds up Kyle’s hoodie and places it on his knee, one hand coming to rest on top of it and the other pushing into the concrete so Jason can… Watch. Kyle doesn’t even know how to approach that, so instead he puts one hand over his nose and takes a deep breath before jumping down, down into the water, the sound of it rushing over his ears and staying there until his lungs burn. He pushes himself up with his feet and finally breaks surface, flips his head back so his hair pushes off his face and meets Jason with a wide grin.

“It’s really nice,” Kyle tells him, breathless and giddy, and Jason just shakes his head all politely.

“I don’t swim.” He says, and it’s then that Kyle notices that his feet aren’t actually in the water. Kyle starts to paddle around in circles, thinking.

“So like… You can’t swim?”

“I can swim just fine. I just don’t like it.” Jason tells him, has that tone in his voice like he’s all offended, and Kyle hums.

“I can’t imagine not swimming, if I’m honest. I was in the water more than I was out of it, back during middle school.” He looks down at himself, likes how the lines of his chest and the injuries are all distorted under the water. “Hey, Jay?” Kyle asks, looking up suddenly. Jason nods.

“How come you don’t like swimming?” Kyle asks, notices how Jason’s fingers clench in his hoodie and his chest constricts.

“I- I’ve had some bad experiences with water. I fell off the Gotham Bridge a few years ago when I’d just got the Red Hood mask and it wasn’t really suited for- Stop laughing. I hate you, so much.” Jason says, reaches over himself to splash some water at Kyle, adn Kyle holds up a hand.

“Hey! You can’t splash me if I’m not allowed to splash you back. And I’m sorry but… I’m just imagining you, the King Pin of Gotham, losing like all of your cool points because you fell off a bridge.” Kyle tells him. Jason shrugs, but a corner of his mouth is upturned.

“Mostly… Mostly it’s because of the Lazarus Pit, though.” And that makes Kyle’s breathing stop. The night is silent around them, then, and Kyle makes a few slow strokes over to the edge of the pool, his arms resting on the tile and his face looking up at Jason.

“Hey. I didn’t mean anything by it.” Kyle starts, but Jason just shrugs.

“I know. I didn’t say it to bust your ass. I just… You know, you were one of the first people I started to open up to about the whole resurrection thing. I guess it’s nice to have that back, however long you want to stick around.” Jason says, and that shouldn’t make Kyle’s heart want to burst out of his chest: Jason Todd, The Red Hood, opening up to him, trusting him. Wanting him to stick around.

“You sure you don’t want to just dip your toes in? I’ll hold your hand.” Kyle teases, which earns him another splash in the face. It takes him off guard, a little, and he splutters and chokes down some chlorinated water, Jason letting out a laugh and then a word of concern, and Kyle pulls himself out of the pool then; plasters himself on Jason’s side and shakes his head all over, Jason pushing him away.

Kyle gasps, then. The palm of Jason’s hand hitting right up against the tender side of his ribs, and Jason must notice because suddenly the same hand is wrapping around Kyle’s hip to steady him, and when Kyle opens his eyes from the grimace Jason is looking back at his injuries.

“You need to take more care of yourself, Rayner. Not all of us can get to space if you happen to kick the bucket up there.” 

“You saying you’d come to my funeral, Todd?” Kyle asks, which is weird because to him Jason has always been Jason or Red Hood or on one very embarrassing occasion  _ babe _ , but never Todd. 

They’re standing closer, now. Kyle dripping water in a pool at his feet and Jason still gripping onto his hip, his hoodie in Jason’s other hand.

“Course I would. If only to tell them what an idiot you were when we all had to work together to save the universe.” Jason says, and Kyle rolls his eyes.

“You were an idiot too, you know. If you’d spent less time riling me up and more time using your brain for more productive things, it may have all gone a lot smoother in the end run."

“Nah, we had Donna to do all the important thinking. You think we would have lasted two days without her?” Jason asks, finally breaks away from Kyle and makes his way over to one of the plastic sunbeds that’s been left out by the pool. He takes his warmth and Kyle’s hoodie with him, so Kyle can’t not follow him. The chair creaks under their combined weight and Kyle is sliding all over it with his wet shorts, until finally Jason grips his bicep and stills him with his one hand, one leg draping over Kyle’s knee, the two of them pressed together, a lone cricket out past the summer season chirping in the background.

“Donna was pretty amazing, this is true.”

“Surprised you could see that through your giant crush on her- hey. Push me off and you tumble with me.” Warns Jason, fingers tightening just slightly, and Kyle breathes out a sigh. His cheeks are pink and heated, remembering his attitude those first few weeks of the team up; his jealousy, at thinking Jason was as interested in Donna as he was. His shock when Donna told him Jason was more likely to be interested in Kyle than her. Kyle coughs, and tucks further into himself.

“Whatever. We’re lucky that we’re such light sleepers in this place, you know. Both of us leaving the room and not one peep out of her? She sleeps like the mother fucking dead.” Kyle says, desperate to bring the conversation away from his old crush, and it must work because Jason juffs a laugh.

“I set off the fire alarm in our room the first night she stayed. It was an accident, obviously. Thought she was gonna get up and rip me to shreds but I turned around and she was still fast asleep. I said to her, the next morning, ‘You know Donna, it’s quite dangerous, being able to sleep so deeply in this lifestyle’. She just asked me if I really thought anyone would be stupid enough to try and kill her while she slept.” Jason explains, finally hands over Kyle’s hoodie when Kyle’s teeth start to chatter.

“You can go back inside, you know. I’m not gonna sit out here all night moping about my shit life.” Jason says, bites through the air, and Kyle shrugs.

“I’m not tired. Space jet lag, you know? Who would have thought.”

“That a Lantern thing? Or just a you thing?”

“You know… I don’t know. I know Hal struggles to adjust, whenever he comes back to Earth, but that’s because he kicks up such a fuss going to space in the first place I think his body just can’t handle being anywhere except California.” Jason snorts, interrupting Kyle. “Simon and Jess usually go off and do their own thing when they haven’t got Corps orders. And Guy generally just sticks around in space. Can’t blame him, I guess.” Kyle says, remembers the last time he’d seen Guy for more than a few fleeting minutes; how his hands had shook and Hal had gripped his shoulder just a little longer than usual, the unspoken voice of concern out of them all.

It makes Kyle sad, really. Maybe he should be spending more time with his team - especially after all they’ve been through.

“What about you Bats?” Kyle asks, just to take some of the attention off him, and Jason cranes his neck to look at him.

“We’re not really in the business of space travel often enough to get space jet lag.”

“You know what I mean. How is everyone?” 

Jason tenses. Blows out a deep breath of air through his nose. Turns his head so it’s lying back flat again and stares up at the sky.

“Bruce and I had… another fight. I haven’t really spoken to him in a few weeks. Everyone else was fine though, last I checked in. The usual, you know, saving Gotham and all of them having very important things to do amongst the superhero community. At this point I should just go back to Gotham whenever any of the brats have fucked something up and don’t want to take the blame for it.”

“Hey. That isn’t true. Cassandra would never fuck anything up, and she’d also never trust you to take the blame for it if she did.” Kyle reminds him, remembers a conversation long ago about the new Batgirl, who moved as quiet as the night and hit harder and better than anyone else. Who somewhat despised Jason and everything he stood for.

Not that Jason seemed to mind, much. Because, as Kyle also remembered, she had her own morals and he had his, and it’s not her fault that Bruce failed Jason in the one way he wanted him to succeed.

“Funny. Whatever, you know. I’ll get a call from Oracle or Nightwing someday soon asking me to come help with some other world ending emergency where it’s all hands on deck, and Bruce will give me shit for shooting out someone’s knee caps and Robin will probably test out all the new insults he’s learnt on me, and I’ll be invited for a tense dinner where everyone plays happy families and ties not to be too disgruntled that the black sheep of the family is back in Bruce’s good graces for the next week.” Jason sits up then, abruptly, as if a thought just got to him.

“Oh my God. He’s going to be so angry when he finds out I’m working with you again. He’ll think it’s Hal’s way of trying to meddle in Gotham affairs, the drama queen.” Jason says, laughs a bit to himself, and it’s only in this light where Kyle notices a new scar on Jason’s back he definitely didn’t have the last time they teamed up.

“What’s-” He starts to ask, fingers moving to touch before his mouth can finish the question, and Jason’s skin is burning hot when Kyle makes contact. The raised scar is bumpy and rough, a major contrast to the smooth expanse of the rest of Jason’s back, and if Jason was tense before then he’s an elastic band moments from snapping now, his breath caught in his chest and Kyle continues to linger.

“Gunshot wound. Got infected.” Jason almost breathes it out, like he’s afraid if he says it too loudly then the trauma of the injury will be more real, and Kyle’s light fingers turn into his whole hand splayed over the scar and Jason’s shoulder blade, Jason’s muscles moving underneath as he tries to turn his head to face Kyle.

“Every meeting is a new one with you, isn’t it Rayner.” Jason says, but his voice is quiet and his lips barely even move, and Kyle shrugs.

“Got to keep things interesting, you know? Now, you gonna let me kiss you, or not?” He asks, and then Jason’s face splits into a grin as he leans in to meet Kyle halfway, lips smooth and mouth warm and Kyle’s heart fit to burst.

 

——————————

 

Donna doesn’t hear them leave, sure, but she can hear the two boys when they come back. They’re squabbling about something, as usual, and one of them flicks on the lamp furthest away from where she’s sprawled over the full space of the bed. She’s tempted, oh so tempted, to open her eyes.

“You think she’ll notice in the morning if we shove her over so we can lie next to each other?” Kyle asks, his whispering voice somewhat of a joke, and Donna can hear the moment where skin meets skin in a smack of some sort. Probably the upper arm, given the sound of it.

“Idiot. Yes she’ll notice. Though she’d probably be ecstatic in the morning, so it won’t exactly be a loss.” Says Jason, voice muffled as he presumably leans over to pull of his jeans leg by leg, and Kyle splutters.

“What do you mean, ecstatic. You told her?” He hisses, noyes of hysteria evident, and oh. Kyle. Bless you and your cotton socks, she thinks, because of course if he was too oblivious to notice the Earth-wide crush Jason Todd had on him, then he absolutely would have neglected to realise that everyone within a five meter radius of the two of them knew about it too. And the crush he had on Todd himself, just to add insult to injury.

“Seriously, I know she’s a heavy sleeper, but keep up with the theatrics and you’re going to wake her. Now. Do you want to move her or shall I do the honours?” 

It’s silent, presumably as the two of them decide the best point of action, and Donna decides to make it easy for them, just this once, and turns over in her sleep. Let’s out a few mumbles with it and kicks her legs out so they think it’s all the actions of her sleeping mind. Someone lets out a sigh.

“Bags the middle.” Is what Kyle says, gets into the bed next to her cold and slightly damp, and she can feel where he brushes a kiss against her temple before turning his back on her. The bed dips again and finally the room goes dark as Jason settles into the bed, hopefully for the rest of the night tonight.

Donna smiles to herself. The dream team, back together at last. What could possibly go wrong?


End file.
